What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

I have been doing folded books for several months now. Over that time, I've looked around for other examples of folded books on the Internet and have not found that many. My search terms have included "folded, books, book sculpture, folded pages, and upcycled books". The other day I found a site that included the term "altered book". My alarm bells went off.


I *know* what "altered" means in this day and age. It means you buy a whole bunch of off-the-shelf crud (in the scrapbook aisle) to paint, paste or otherwise "embellish" a found object to make it your own. I have to say I HATE the scrapbook craft of today. I hate that "scrapbook" has been turned into a verb. (I hate that "journal" has gone down the same road, too, but that is for another day...) What IS a scrapbook? It's a memory-reminder. It is the content that matters. Nowadays, people have been brainwashed into thinking it is the format and accessories that matter. I have scrapbooks, but they are filled with pictures that mark memories and events. They are not overwhelmed by layouts and embellishments. Pardon me, Layouts and Embellishments. Everybody's stuff looks the same. There is a minimum of content and a lot of decoration. Wasteful. Expensive. Mindless.

That goes for the altered books I saw in my search yesterday. My quest to find like-minded artmakers ended in despair as I saw the same old materials (scrapbooking-type) used in increasingly bizarre combinations (in the name of originality) to make a whole lot of nothing. Most altered books are colored in the same out-of-the-tube magenta, turquoise, lime, and yellow. Pasted with the same looking "vintage" color copy photos (with absolutely NO connection with the artmaker) - many with dunce caps - and embellished with cut-out words, glitter and rickrack. The problem is, this could be really neat! There are really original things you can do with books - think Su Blackwell, Nicholas Jones, Brian Dettmer and others. Someone else who is not as well-known, but I think is also on the track I'd like to pursue (is that the crux of the matter - what I like vs. what everyone else is doing? Neither is wrong? Pbbbbt!) is Karen J. Hatzigeorgiou. She actually does a bit of the stuff I hate, too. Go figure.



Rant over. I think what I'm trying to say, be original. Why the heck are you using a book as your foundational material? I am the last person to have a philosophy about art, so I can't ask "what are you trying to say" because that just leads people to spout obtuse mumbo-jumbo.

I do altered books, too, but it's not the way portrayed in the books you find in the store, using the materials bought at Michaels that EVERYONE uses because "that's what an altered book looks like." *sigh* I'm not where I want to be yet. I've only just begun on my journey, but I think that I'm on the road less traveled. And hopefully, that will make all the difference.